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Open Mic Highlights 06/17
• There was World cup fever at the beginning of the mic! The Tartan Army from Scotland was in the house, and first-timer Bryan Bonner covered Robert Burns beautifully
• David Sherman’s letter-poem to the Cantab revealing his kinks, which are “talk to me in the subjunctive mood,” and items of obsolescence like working phone booths and communicating via handwritten letters
• Claudia Wilson returned to the mic for the first time in about eight years to read an excellent epic poem about the aftermath of their hair (“at the bottom of the ocean is the remnants of my hair”)
• “My love language is driving you to the airport” / “Some friendships deserve to survive capitalism” – John Lee
• “I had the dog in me and then the dog ate the poem I was going to show you” – Shivank
• Jarvis had a memorable turn hosting, giving the audience a series of “daddy jokes” (we don’t call them dad jokes anymore) and later reprised his great “Macho Man Randy Savage” persona piece
• Renee’s poem that invoke a whole slew of philosophers to help her understand the nature of relationships
• Our haiku slam was won by Slam Free or Die’s Christopher Clauss, who made the audience laugh for extended periods of time between each haiku!
• “Hope has been lynched here and made a flag” – from Briana’s incredible piece on the violent legacy of southern states and U.S. black history
Feature 06/17
We had a TREAT of a feature this week! Local poets Will Leonard and Tru Kwene, 2026 slam champions of BPS and Just Be(Loved), combined forces to craft a full set together! The set was threaded around both the struggle and the joy of being queer or trans, but with a sense of openness that each poet was gifting each poem to you directly. The meta-titles of each poem reflected this throughout the set: Kwene’s “Here is my queer poem,” followed by Will’s “Here is my trans poem”, followed by a group piece that merges both of their voices. I urge you check out the video of the set on our instagram right now! We are so lucky to have both Will and Kwene in our local community!
Open Mic Highlights 06/24
• It was an open mic filled with group pieces from the BPS slam team! Will Leonard paired up with Mugs, Bobby, Kai, and Jarvis for a quartet of pieces that had a slower-burning, spacious, inquisitive feel, as opposed to the normal “wall-of-sound” crescendo that is often heard
• “The only script I read from is the truth” – Jayda
• Gel was on “thin ice” as he sang about RFK having a worm living in his brain to the tune of “Yesterday” by The Beatles, but it was probably the funniest poem of the night!
• It was great to see former BPS team member Skylar Paape and former BPS feature Legacy Thornton on the mic again, who both delivered standout poems about coming back to one’s self and the (non-existent) secret to happiness
• “Even our breathing held hands” – from Briana’s “Letters From Lovers Of My Body”
Feature 06/24
This week we debuted the FREAK SHIT vs THIN ICE slam! For each round, each team wrote on the same prompt, with Team Freak Shit writing in a more surrealistic and experimental way, and Team Thin Ice writing at the borders of what could be considered a poem by blending other distinct genres. Your recapper (Michael F Gill) had the pleasure of doing the sacrificial poems for both teams in the slam!
Slam highlights include Myles’ verbal concrete / “paint-by-word” piece describing Allston as he sees it, where every inch of the imagined photograph was a word describing what is there (“sky” “prudential center” “grass” “moped delivery guy”) and the poem was read from the top of the image to the bottom.
Writing on the theme of Texas, Kay told us about the difference between bigness and largeness, went deep on the science of why the air is actually heavier and thicker in Texas, and linked this density to the moment she publicly announced her relationship with her girlfriend.
TJ gave us a very funny “infomercial” for a workout app, in the style of a motivational speaker/snakeoil salesmen who also sounds like he’s 100 years old. Amy wrote about learning to play the piano, and, with the sound of a metronome playing in the background, told us how she learned to change the speed of time by playing pieces too fast or too slow, and all the mental games that come into play when you consider how many mistakes you’ll make depending on the speed in question.
There was an incredible amount of strong new work shared in this slam, with Thin Ice taking the win in the final round! Thanks to everyone who took part in this new format!
Coming Up This Wednesday
This week’s featured poet Scott Beal has kindly offered to not only feature for us, but to run our monthly workshop as well! Workshop at 6:30, Doors at 7:15, Show starts at 8, feature at 10.
FEATURE INFO: Scott Beal is the author of Stegosaurus Moon (Dzanc Books, 2026) and Wait ‘Til You Have Real Problems (Dzanc Books, 2014), as well as the chapbook The Octopus (Gertrude Press, 2016). His poems have appeared in journals such as Rattle, Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, and Michigan Quarterly Review, and have received awards including a Pushcart Prize. He directs the Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts at the University of Michigan and teaches in the Sweetland Center for Writing. He co-hosts the Skazat! online poetry series and co-edits the literary journal Public School Poetry. He’s performed at the Cantab Lounge, the Green Mill, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the Individual World Poetry Slam, and elsewhere. He lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
WORKSHOP INFO: In this workshop we will examine poems by Thomas Lux and Brigit Pegeen Kelly that use humor, radically imaginative imagery, and surprising turns to complicate our understanding of abject creatures (tarantulas, scorpions). Then we will write our own poems in which we use language to explore and reach for difficult empathy for beings that inspire distrust, disgust, and fear. You’ll end up with a cool new poem, and perhaps even a more nuanced view of someone or something with whom you’ve had a difficult relationship.
See you later! 🐊
– MFG 🚪
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